Passing The Baton: Succession Planning.

Business is like a relay race. The baton has to be passed to the next person for the race to continue. Without someone to continue the race, it comes to a grinding halt. The race ends when there are no more runners to continue the race.

It’s the same thing in a business. Without the proper people to handle it and continue it after the founders are no more, it will surely fold up.

Notice the emphasis on ‘proper’.

There are some businesses that have been passed down to the heir of the founder after his/her demise and that was the beginning of the end of that business. The heirs probably weren’t groomed and trained properly enough to run a business hence, the failure.

Succession planning, according to Business Dictionary, is the identification and development of potential successors for key positions in an organization, through a systematic evaluation process and training.

It is the systematic process of recognizing and creating future leaders who have the ability to take the position of the old ones when they leave the organization due to retirement, resignation, termination, transfer, promotion or death.

There are positions in the organization that can be done without, or let’s say will not have serious impact if unavailable for a while. Of course, it will eventually show if anything is lacking.

But there are a couple of key positions in the company that if absent, could ruin the company totally. These positions should be properly planned for so as to ensure the continuity of the business.

Succession planning requires a strategic plan to pull off, else, there could be hiccups. Here are a couple of steps to follow to achieve it.

Identify Key Positions: As expected, the first step will be to identify the positions that need to be planned for. These are the key positions we talked about earlier. These include roles that will cause the business to malfunction when unavailable.

Figure out competencies for the positions: The next step is to figure out individuals who could be eligible to fill the positions available. See if they already have some needed skills, knowledge, ability, experience for the role, which will of course be improved upon later.

Lay candidates and roles side by side: Identify among the employees with necessary competencies and lay them side by side with the intended roles and ascertain their interest too. Discuss the future plans with them and be sure they are willing to take on the new roles when the time comes.

Training and development: Now that the incumbent candidates have been decided upon, the next thing is to train and groom them for the roles. They already have some skills and knowledge, but they should be improved upon.

Develop and Implement the Strategies: Develop and implement the strategies for learning, training, development, knowledge transfer, experience sharing for potential successors.

Evaluate: this is like the final step of the process. After all the work is done, evaluate the whole process and see if it works out. This is to ensure that all the key positions are accounted for to ensure that when future sudden vacancies come up, there is a quick cover up for it.

Occasional situations can surely come up, but it’s still best to be prepared. It makes it easier to cope when such happens.